How to Vote for the President

William Edgar

Character, discernment, trust

Americans are getting closer to actually voting for their President. Soon the party conventions. Then the real campaigning. Then, finally, we will get to vote. But are we ready, even now? Is there a principled way to cast your ballot? Or are the candidates simply horses in a grand, very expensive, sometimes glitzy, sometimes sordid, horse race?

Will you vote for the least-bad candidate? That is the way many voters will approach the election. With little enthusiasm for one person, they will go for the person with the least deficits: a conservative who is weak on abortion; a liberal who is weak on security. Some will decide we really need change, any change. Whatever the risks of an inexperienced candidate, anything is better than what we have now. Others will want continuity. Whatever the need for change, we had better be safe and go for the most experienced candidate.

Adding up the items on a platform and going for the candidate with the highest “score” is one way to vote, and it has some merit. If we are going to live with an administration for the next four years, we had better be comfortable with its views. Or at least we had better be prepared so we are not taken by surprise.

But altogether, this is not a good way to decide on your candidate. For one thing, no one is likely to represent all of the views any one voter wants to see promoted. I, for one, identify with certain approaches to race relations that are not always held by candidates who also care deeply about the dignity of marriage. Pro-business candidates may be weak on the environment. And for another, we all know that reality tends to relativize campaign promises for the winner. Before stepping into office, President Bush could have had little idea that his presidency would be defined to such an extent by the threat of terrorist fanatics, any more than Harry Truman could have known he would become president at all and have to decide whether or not to unleash the most powerful weapon in human history.

Instead of keeping score on political platforms, we should first consider the character of the candidate. In a word, what will matter more than anything else when a candidate takes office (any office, for that matter) is how he or she will make decisions. The Apostle Paul’s discussion of character in Romans 5 is to the point. After reminding the readers of being at peace with God because of his justifying grace in Jesus Christ, Paul personalizes it, saying we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God (5:1–2). The Greek word might be translated “boast”—that is, we are proud of our Christian hope. He then makes the astonishing statement that in a similar way, we may rejoice or be proud in our sufferings (5:3). Note that Paul is not saying we should love to suffer. The gospel is not masochistic. Rather, in our sufferings, because they will come, we have a God-given opportunity to develop our hope more deeply. When approached in faith, these sufferings will produce endurance. This is one of the singularly absent virtues in the modern West. Patient slugging it out, day by day—this is not the American way.

However, if we cultivate endurance, then the next virtue is produced: character (5:4). The word, appropriately, means ability to withstand a test. A person of character is one who reliably will do the right thing under pressure. Such character will then issue forth in deeper hope (5:4–5). In other words, only when we are strong in the face of pressure, be it the pressure of office or of life’s contingencies, can we see things as they really are. What we come to see are not the rewards or the perks, but the big picture: a hope which in the grand scheme of things does not put us to shame (the NIV weakly renders it, “does not disappoint us”)—the only true hope. Leaders who have this kind of character will see the larger perspective, beyond the immediate exigencies. Of course, no human being has omniscience, but the great leaders of history have tended to guide their countries in the right way, as opposed, say, to the safe way, or the way of immediate prosperity.

The most admired leaders in the Bible are people of character. David, Abraham, the earlier Solomon, Joseph, Deborah, Daniel: these are people of integrity who walked with their God and could lead their people into covenant faithfulness before him. They had feet of clay, and some were deeply flawed, yet they held this larger perspective set forth by Paul. The wisdom literature of the Bible is full of instruction about the training of the sage in the art of navigating life. The Book of Proverbs shows the young man (and by implication all people of faith) how to resist Dame Folly and seek Lady Wisdom. The goal and fruit of the pursuit of such wisdom is the kind of virtue displayed in the woman of Proverbs 31, which is not a chapter to make housekeepers feel inadequate, but an idealized model of what true character looks like.

Various cultures have recognized this principle in their own ways. The ancient Greeks believed virtue to be essential to political leadership. Virtue was taught, not caught. The best schools should inculcate four aspects of virtue: prudence, justice, courage, and moderation. In medieval times these Greek traits of character were combined with the biblical ones of faith, hope, and charity and developed into the “cardinal virtues.” History is replete with examples of stunted or absent development of character, often leading to disastrous results. Lord Acton’s famous dictum, “power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely,” contains only a half truth. Certainly, the greater one’s power, the greater the temptation to abuse one’s office. Power must be held with a very light hand, because it surely carries great temptation. And so our best leaders have always considered their office to be a trust, not a right. But strictly speaking, it is not power that corrupts, but the human heart, with its distorted desire for control, which leads to trouble. That heart needs to be converted.

Another reminder in view of the elections is that the presidency of the United States is certainly a most important office. But it is misguided to pin too many hopes on this one position. Government, in the Reformed understanding, is good. It is not a concession to human sinfulness but a divinely appointed means to promote good order, protection, justice, and life. Still, it is only government—no more, no less. Legislation is an important part of life. But it cannot possibly be the principal means for promoting morality. That must be done at many levels and through numerous institutions: the church, the family, the school, the workplace, the news media, voluntary organizations, and so on. Too many people look to the president, and thus to the election process, with a sort of messianic hope for a rosy future. And then, several months into office, the new president reveals himself not to be the messiah at all. There have been so many disappointments that some Christians choose not to vote at all.

Refusing to vote is understandable but not helpful. Such refusal can come from different motives. One is cynicism. Because politics cannot usher in the good society, why trust any institution to accomplish anything positive at all? Another is extreme libertarianism. The only good government is an invisible one. Voting gives it legitimacy. Still another is a variant of the Anabaptist tradition that says the only real center for God’s activity is the church. Other institutions are there, but Christians need not over-invest in them. From a Reformational understanding, each of these motives are tinged with a kind of irresponsibility.

If government can never solve all our problems, it nevertheless has an important role to play in human life. It does matter who is elected. Our lives are affected. The plight of the elderly, the way we treat immigrants: all of these matter. Furthermore, even though many nations are rising to prominence in our “Post-American World,”[1] this country still occupies an enormously influential place among them. With such power comes great responsibility. If only in view of the right development of foreign policy, and to find our rightful place among the world’s peoples, it matters deeply whom we elect.

While the federal government has its place, so do state and local governments. Many Christians (many Americans for that matter) only know the big picture in Washington. But they would be hard put to name their local officials—the mayor, the building inspector, the tax-collector, the civil magistrate, the superintendent of schools. And yet these officials often determine the quality of our lives far more than the national ones. To vote responsibly should mean not waiting four years for the next presidential campaign to unfold, but being regularly involved, however informally, in the local political scene. On top of all this, many of us believe our entire system is badly in need of reform. Should we not play some role toward helping to reform it?

For whom will you vote? My own conviction is, I hope, a wise one: for the candidates who most exemplify character; for the persons most likely to make the right decisions in the face of tremendous pressure; and for those who will look at their office as a trust, not a right.  

William Edgar is a Senior Fellow of The Trinity Forum and professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.

3 Responses (comments are closed) • Features, Character and Ethics, Leadership, Public Square, Wed 20 Aug 2008